Ken Budka

Sr. Partner, Murray Hill (NJ)

He has served as strategic advisor to government officials and CxOs world-wide, helping transform public safety, transportation and other government services through the adoption of new information and communications technologies, and helping utilities modernize their communications networks to support smart grid applications.

Ken was one of the driving forces behind the global adoption of commercial wireless broadband technologies for public safety communications. In the wake of the communications interoperability problems experienced in the response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Ken led Bell Labs’ R&D effort to support mission-critical public safety wireless communications using commercial broadband technologies. Building on this research, he was a key contributor to pivotal milestones and efforts in the ongoing, global transformation of public safety communications, including: deployment in Washington, D.C. of the first Public Safety Broadband Network built using open-standard wireless technologies, creation of a broadband-only block in the Public Safety 700 MHz band to support deployment of commercial broadband technologies, early advocacy with U.S. Government and Public Safety officials in favor of constructing a nationwide public safety broadband network, and the United States’ first over-the-air LTE transmissions in the Public Safety 700 MHz band. Ken served as Vice-Chair of the 15-member Technical Advisory Board for First Responder Interoperability, a panel of experts established by the U.S. Congress to set minimum technical interoperability requirements for the Nationwide Public Safety 700 MHz Broadband Network, FirstNet. Previously, he served on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) as Chair of the Network Evolution Working Group.

Ken led Bell Labs’ multi-faceted smart grid R&D effort focusing on the development of secure, high performance communications protocols and architectures to support the introduction of smart grid applications; development of analytical techniques to transform meter, SCADA and other data into information useful in grid control, operations and optimization; and development and delivery of strategic network transformation services for utility operations networks. Ken has consulted for utilities world-wide, helping evolve their legacy operations networks into networks capable of supporting smart grid applications.

Ken joined Bell Labs in 1991. Throughout his career, he has contributed to development of next-generation wireless and wireline communications technologies and products. Prior to joining Bell Labs Consulting, he was Chief Technology Officer of Alcatel-Lucent’s Strategic Industries group, a business division dedicated to the development and deployment of mission-critical communications systems for public safety, energy, transportation and government markets.

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